


The World at Our Feet

by thegalrahobbitofplantetgalilfrey



Series: The World Turned Upside Down. [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: AU, Gen, I kind of beat up Lance, Langst, like literally - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-12-19 02:06:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11887635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegalrahobbitofplantetgalilfrey/pseuds/thegalrahobbitofplantetgalilfrey
Summary: Highschool time. Keith meets his long-lost buddies from the beach. Then, whoops, trouble, because Lance is chivalrous.





	The World at Our Feet

"Have a good first day of high school, Keith! Make some new friends." Akira practically shoved his nervous son through the doors. He'd gone to public school, but he'd gotten used to hanging out with Katie. Well, now Katie was still in grade school, and Keith was going to have to make some new friends. Or just not have any, which was probably a more likely situation. Akira shook his head and walked back to his car. It was at times like this when he wished that he'd put his foot down on issues like parties that Keith didn't want to go to.

 

Keith shrank into a corner, trying his hardest not to be noticed. This high school had more people than his middle school, and most of them were loud and boisterous. As he scanned the crowd for an at least somewhat familiar face, a certain boy caught his eye. He knew him. From a long time ago. Where had he seen him? A memory of a surfboard came to mind. An out of control surfboard.

"Lance?"

The boy turned and squinted at him, walking over. He pointed one finger at Keith. "I know you. Where do I know you from?"

Keith grinned and pointed to his head. "Surfboard. Head."

Comprehension dawned in Lance's eyes. "Keith! Wow, I think that blow to the head stunted your growth."

Keith protested loudly against his. "Hey! At least _I_ didn't turn into a skinny beanpole."

Lance grinned ruefully. "Ah, the price of being tall. No more football for me."

"Oh, yeah, guess who's here? Katie! Her family moved in around the same time we met each other. And remember the guy who rescued me?"

Lance snorted. "How could I forget _that?_ I was so relieved I hadn't killed you I could have kissed him."

"Yeah, well, he lives here too."

"Speaking of long-lost friends, guess who's also here? Hunk! Apparently, the college offered him a scholarship because he's a mechanical genius, but he has to go to high school here too."

"Speaking of moving friends, why are _you_ here? Fancy surfboarding scholarship?"

Lance let out a short laugh. "Ha. That'll be the day. My family's military. We were transferred. Oh, look, Hunk's back!"

Hunk scanned the crowd and his face lit up. In a few quick strides, he reached them and swept Keith up into a bone-crushing hug. "Hey! Haven't seen you in _years."_

"Nice to see you too, Hunk. You grew. Like a lot."

Hunk grinned. "Yeah, I hit a growth-spurt or two. Or five. Anyway, why don't we compare schedules? See what classes we have together?"

"Eh, you probably won't have many with me," Lance said, "you're in all the smart people classes. I'm dumb." He said this cheerfully, like he had come to terms with his normalcy and it didn't bother him anymore.

"That's fine," Keith replied, "I'm a dumb person too. We can be dumb together."

Lance held up a hand for high five. "Yeah! Dumb buddies!" Keith obligingly smacked his hand and Hunk shook his head.

"You two are so weird."

"Fantastic! That means no one else will try to be friends with us."

"Yeah," Lance agreed, "although Hunk, you might have to watch out; you're too nice, people will like you."

"Nah, this is high school; people are either cliquey and giggling about something or are being totally bored/emo. Moderates are crushed."

"Wow, Keith, that's kind of dark. Are you of the emo class?"

Keith deepened his voice. "Join me, Lance, and I will show you the power of the emo side."

Lance burst out laughing and some of the girls gave them disgusted looks, muttering something about "freshman boys."

Hunk grinned. "Already making everybody hate you. Maybe I can ward off potential friends if you keep this up."

Lance patted his shoulder. "Got your back, H-man."

 

 

After school, Lance decided to explore his new school. He had already flirted with some fine ladies, messed with his friends and accidentally gotten the biology teacher mad at him already for knocking something or other over. Whoops. Lance turned a corner, and immediately spotted a single nerdy but pretty freshman girl in a large gang of boys who were all messing with her, and in a bad way. She spotted him and made a “get out of here before they see you look.” Lance chose to ignore this, and got closer.

“Are you sure you’re refusing, Annalise?” one of them sneered, “Things could go very badly for you if you don’t.”

She took a deep breath. “Avery, I told you, I’m not going to do your homework for you. Find some other person you can sucker into your every whim. I’m done cheating for you.”

The gang moved in threateningly. “You sure?”

“Why, hello, gentlemen!” Lance strode in and gave all of the gang a brilliant smile. “I can see you found Annalise for me! Excellent, I was looking for her.” He put one arm around Annalise and steered her gently away from the boys. “Avery, was it? Nice to meet you, I’m Lance McClain. Did you know something really amazing? When people help you actually learn the subject instead of just doing your homework, you’ll do better in school. Your grades will shoot up astronomically. Just a thought, since Annalise here is really smart, you could probably get her to tutor you and then, _bam_ test scores go up, you can play all your sports and everybody wins. Much better than others doing your homework for you. Anyway, nice talking, but Annalise and I have some _very_ important stuff to do, so, see you later.” He walked very quickly down the hallway, trying to get back where there were people who would hopefully stop Avery from beating him up.

“Stop right there, McClain.”

Lance halted with a wince. Nope. He couldn’t make it. Avery and his buddies would catch him _and_ Annalise if he tried. “Find Hunk Garret and Keith Kogane,” he whispered to Annalise, “Tell them what’s happening.”

Annalise nodded and scurried down the hallway, while Lance turned to face Avery. Hopefully he could still bluff his way out of this. “Did you need something?”

“Do you take me for some kind of fool?”

“…Nooooo?”

Avery picked him up by his collar. “I’m not an idiot! You were mocking me! Anyone with half a brain could see that!”

 _I’m surprised you noticed then_ , Lance thought wryly. Out loud, he said, “Well, no offense intended, really. Very incredibly sorry, so if you could just set… me… down…”

Avery slammed him into a locker, and Lance gasped as stars danced in front of his eyes. “Stop trying to act like you’re totally innocent and don’t mean to insult me! I know your type and I _despise_ your kind.”

“The charming, handsome kind who make people smile?”

Avery slammed Lance into the lockers again. “The cocky arrogant kind who think they’re better than everybody and God’s gift to mankind.”

“I’m not God’s gift to mankind, I’m God’s gift to _womankind.”_ Lance regretted those words the instant they came out of his mouth, because they earned him a slam into the lockers and then getting thrown to the floor.

“See? Cocky, arrogant, thinks they can get away with insulting me… I’m teaching _all_ of you a lesson!” He kicked Lance in the side, and Lance realized, in a haze of pain, that he was wearing steel-toed cowboy boots. Then another kick directed at his face tore his skin, and he felt a little _crack_ as his nose broke. He curled into fetal position, waiting for them to go away, waiting for the beating to stop. When it did, he staggered to his feet, and then was immediately knocked back over, to the guffaws of his tormentors. He dazedly got back up and threw a punch at Avery, who easily dodged it and knocked Lance over again, giving him another kick.

“Do you want to make fun of me now? Huh? Do you think I’m a joke now?”

“Geeze,” Lance wheezed, “Can I just say… overreaction?”

Avery’s face twisted into a scowl, and Lance was sure he was about to get his lights punched out, but then Avery disappeared from his line of vision, and someone was gently pulling him away from the fray. Hunk. Lance could see Keith head-locking Avery and shoving him down onto his knees, his eyes alight with cold fury.

“Apologize,” he snarled, “Apologize to my friend.”

“Gah-I-ah-”

“ _Apologize.”_

“S-sorry! I’m sorry!”

“Promise you won’t _ever_ do that to anyone else _ever_ again.”

“Ah-I-I promise!”

“And if I _ever_ catch you doing that to _anybody_ again, I will wring your stupid neck. Got it?”

“G-g-got it.”

Keith released him and Avery stumbled away, saying what a psychopath Keith was. _Says the kettle to the pot,_ Lance thought dully.

Annalise appeared from behind a locker, eyes wide. “Lance! Oh my goodness, what- why- What do we need to do?!”

“H-hi.”

“Stop talking! You need to, like, not move right now.”

“Lance, I think your nose is broken. And, hold on, how many fingers do you see?”

“Two?”

“Hm. I’m not taking possible concussion off the list. Annalise, do you know where the nurse’s office is?”

Annalise shook her head. “We can’t take him there.”

“What? Why not?”

“He might have done no actual fighting, but he’ll still be in trouble since, technically, he provoked them. And so he’ll get detention, and you can bet that Keith will too once they tell _their_ side of the story.”

“What do we do? I don’t know anything about what to do for this, and any of our parents will call the school, and Annalise already outlined why we can’t do that.”

“Shiro.”

Everybody swiveled to look at Keith.

“Shiro will help without a bunch of questions. We can trust him. Can you guys call your parents and tell them that you’re staying with a friend?

“Sure. But who…”

“Remember the guy who rescued me? We’re totally tight now. Just tell them you’re with me, okay?”

“Alright. If you’re sure it’s okay.”

Keith made a wry face. “I just hope he’s not busy.” He dialed Shiro’s number and he picked up a few rings later.

“Hello, Takeshi Shirogane speaking, who is this?”

“Hey, Shiro, it’s Keith.”

“Oh! Hey, Keith. I really need to add you to my caller I.D. What’s up?”

“I actually need a favor. Can you pick me and some friends up and maybe we could come over?”

There was a pause. “How many of you are there?”

Keith looked at his friends and mouthed _okay?_ Hunk nodded, and gave a thumbs-up for Lance, but Annalise shook her head no. “Me and two others. And, uh, could you pick us up on the side? Preferably where there are no people?”

“What did you do now?”

“Nothing! Not much, I promise! I just really need some help right now.”

“And your dad…”

“Probably shouldn’t know.”

Shiro heaved a deep sigh. “You better have a wildly great explanation for this.”

“I do, I promise.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Thanks, Shiro.”

“Mhm. Bye.”

“Bye.” Keith hung up the phone and called his dad. Permission wasn’t hard to get. “Alright. We’re good. Annalise, will you be okay?”

“Yeah.”

Lance lifted his head a little. “If they try anything, you tell me. I’ll swoop in and punch their lights out. You’ll see… It’ll be real… impressive… I think I need to lie down now.” His head dropped into Hunk’s lap.

Annalise giggled. “I’m sure it will be.” She leaned down and gently kissed Lance’s forehead. “Be careful, alright?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She smiled and walked away down the hallway. Keith looked at Lance’s face, and saw total bliss. _Annalise has a new suitor_ , he thought with some amusement, _I might actually go to homecoming just to watch this._

 

 

“What happened to _him_?” Getting Lance to the car had been fairly difficult, but Keith was confident that no one had seen them. Now the part of coming up with a “wildly great explanation.” He was going to tell the truth of course; he couldn’t lie to save his life; but he also didn’t want to say anything that would make Shiro call any parents, because that could get awkward.

“He got into a fight.”

Shiro snorted as he turned the engine on. “Well even a complete idiot could see that. It’s not like I looked at him and thought, “Gee, I bet that guy fell down some stairs, ouch.” Seriously, Keith, give me more credit than that. You do realize I’m in college, right?”

Keith grinned. “But Shiro, I thought they let you in on your wildly great personality. That’s what you said when you failed A.P. Biology.”

Shiro pointed one finger at him. “You, sir, can shut up, or I will drop you off at the nearest gas station.”

Keith mimed zipping his mouth shut, and Shiro rolled his eyes. “I will pull this car over. Don’t think I won’t.”

“Yes, Dad.”

“Alright, that’s it, we’re finding the nearest den of rattlesnakes and throwing you in.”

“Um, Mr. Shiro Sir? Could we maybe take care of Lance first please?”

Shiro smiled warmly at Hunk. “Of course. We’ll get right on that, and then you can help me look for rattlesnakes.” He turned to Keith. “Why can’t _you_ address me as Mr. Shiro Sir?”

“I don’t know Mr. Shiro Sir. I wish I could Mr. Shiro Sir. Keep your eyes on the road Mr. Shiro Sir.”

Shiro grinned and turned back to look at where he was going. “Oh, you know, I figured if we crashed it would be easier to hide the fact that your friend got beat up. Speaking of which, why _did_ he get beat up? And why are we hiding it from his parents?”

“He decided to valiantly defend a maiden in distress. Also, he was cocky about it. We just don’t want anyone to know that there _was_ a fight. Otherwise there will be a lot of detention all the way around.”

“All the way around?”

“I helped get rid of them.”

“Ah.” Shiro pulled into the dorms and they half carried, half dragged Lance up to Shiro’s room.

Matt looked up from where he was reading. “Shiro, did you and Keith pick up some strays?”

“They followed me home. Can I keep them?”

“How about no.”

“Why not?”

“They’re too expensive to feed.”

“Doesn’t the Garrison do that? I mean, I just go to the cafeteria and get food every day.”

Matt closed his eyes and exhaled loudly through his nose. “Shiro, did you do your college planning, or did your parents?”

“Um…”

“You are _so_ lucky you got such a massive scholarship.”

Hunk raised his hand. “Um, ‘scuse me, sorry, don’t really want to interrupt, but Lance is starting to look more and more like a dying fish.” Lance obligingly gave a plaintive moan and flopped on Hunk a little more.

“Right! Sorry! Just lay him down there, and I’ll be right back.”

Hunk set Lance down gently on Shiro’s bed and backed away. “Do you think he’ll be okay?” he whispered to Keith, “He looks pretty bad.”

“He’ll probably be fine. Although, if Shiro’s our medic, we should probably worry.”

“I heard that,” Shiro shouted, “And I’m and _excellent_ medic. I’ve certainly had more training than _you_. Don’t listen to Keith, Hunk. He’s a pathological liar.”

“Am not! I thought you were getting something!”

“Right, right.” Shiro reappeared a few moments later with his arms full of cleaning alcohol, cotton balls, gauze, medical tape and Band-Aids.

Keith eyed the pile apprehensively. “Shiro, you do realize that we’re going to be _healing_ Lance, not mummifying him, right?”

“Um, yeah, uh, Mr. Shiro Sir, I would like to have my friend normal again and not, um, prepared for an ancient Egyptian burial.”

Shiro sent them both withering glances. “I don’t know how much I’m going to need, so I brought all of it.”

Hunk looked appropriately shamed. Keith remained decidedly un-withered.

“His nose is broken. What am I supposed to do for that?”

“What are you asking _us_ for? _You’re_ the college military survival genius here.”

“Stop being snappy, Keith. I wasn’t kidding about those rattlesnakes. Matt, what do I do here?”

Matt cracked his knuckles and examined Lance’s nose. “Do any of you have a picture of what his nose should look like?”

“Why would I have a picture of Lance’s nose?”

Matt sighed exasperatedly. “Not of his nose, moron, just of his face.”

“No. I don’t take pictures of Lance. Why would I?”

“For memories or something, I don’t know. Fine Keith, get over here. Your nose is close enough.”

Hunk gulped. “Close enough? Not sure I like the sound of that.”

“Sh. I’m fixing him.” Matt touched Keith’s nose gently and then brushed Lance’s. Then he grabbed Lance’s nose and with a grinding popping noise that elicited a yell from Lance, he pulled it back into its normal place. “There. All fixed. Shirogane, you better wash your sheets when you’re done with him; they look like you tie-dyed a red T-shirt on them.”

“Thanks Matt. How did you know how to do that?”

Matt shrugged. “Lucky guess.”

Lance moaned and put a hand to his face. “Please don’t tell me my nose is plastered to my forehead or something.”

“Nah, it’s just covered in blood.”

“Oh, thanks. That’s _real_ reassuring.”

“Sh. What else is wrong?”

“I think there’s a cut on my face, and steel-toed cowboy boots hold a special place of hatred in my heart.”

“Little more specific.”

“He kicked my ribs.”

“Much better. Lift up your shirt.”

“Go figure,” Lance moaned as he obeyed, “I’m _ordered_ to take off my shirt, and there’s no ladies around to impress.”

“I think that’s a good thing, Lance.”

Lance rolled his eyes towards heaven with a pious look on his face. “Everybody’s a comedian now.”

“Mhm. Breath in and out.”

“Well, I’ve hardly been holding my breath.”

“Do it more deeply.” Lance obliged, and Shiro examined his chest. “Well, you’re lucky.”

“I don’t feel it,” Lance wheezed, “I feel like ground meat.”

“You look like it too,” Keith offered, “One oversized hamburger.”

“Gee, thanks. Hunk, I think you’re my only friend in this room.”

“What I mean,” Shiro said, shooting Keith a quelling glance, “is that nothing’s broken just bruised.”

“And I suppose I need stitches or something to compensate this stroke of luck?”

“Mmm… _Mayyybe?_ ”

“Great. I suppose the amazing Matt wonder can “lucky guess” how to do that, too.”

“No,” Matt said, completely deadpan, “But Katie has been wanting to try out sewing.”

“Don’t you dare.”

Shiro cleaned the blood off of Lance’s face and pressed a patch of gauze to Lance’s bleeding nose, taping it down. “That should be enough, but you might have to change out the gauze every so often. I think you’ll be okay.”

“Yippee,” Lance muttered darkly, “I can go into my second day of school looking like I boxed Mike Tyson. What exactly is my cover up here?”

“Rabid dog?”

“Fell out of a golf cart?”

“Tripped and fell down the stairs.”

“I will take the first one.”

“Seriously?”

“More heroic than the other two.”

“Also less believable. Why did a rabid dog break your nose?”

“He was heavy, okay?”

“And also managed to tear your skin open without biting you?”

“This thing had killer nails.”

“I think you fell down the stairs.”

“Nuh-uh, I am _not_ that clumsy. It was a rabid dog.”

“I’m telling everybody you fell down the stairs.”

“We can’t have contradicting stories, Keith.”

“I’ll just tell them you’re too embarrassed to admit it.”

“Don’t you dare!”

“Why does it matter? Annalise knows the truth and she’s the only one who matters, right?”

Lance opened his mouth, turned red and closed his mouth. “That’s not fair, because I can’t even argue.”

“Basically the point, Lance. But what I want to know is why he beat you up that bad. I mean, you’re a cocky twit, but you’re not cocky enough to warrant _that._ ”

“I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me today. Thank you for that.”

“You’re welcome. But anyway, it just doesn’t make sense. Why was he that mad?”

“I’d say that it was that time of the month, but…”

“Real mature. I’m thinking that he and Annalise were a thing.”

Lance sat straight up. “No way! Annalise wouldn’t fall for that creep! She’s too smart to do that!”

“Wow, suddenly you are an excellent judge of character. Lance, you literally knew her for about ten minutes. Maybe she likes the big burly type. In which case you don’t stand a chance. I hope you realize that.”

Lance leaned back on a pillow. “I’m an invalid, Keith. You’re not allowed to make fun of me because I’m helpless.”

“On the contrary, I _get_ to make fun of you because you can’t fight back.”

“You’re mean.”

“That’s not very honorable, Keith.”

Keith grinned at Hunk. “I know, but it’s fun.”

“Shiro, how fast can you find those rattlesnakes?”

 

 

“Um. Yes. Me and Avery were a couple.”

Lance’s jaw dropped to the ground. “No way. How did _that_ happen?”

Annalise sighed. “He was really nice to me at first. At first, he was just sweetly concerned about his grades and asked me to tutor him. Without threats or anything. I was happy to oblige and then one day he asked me out and I said yes. Later I caught him kicking some kid’s cat and shoving the kid into a thorn bush. He claimed the cat scratched him and the kid had sic’d the cat on him, but he was lying. I broke up with him, and that’s when he started forcing me to do his homework.”

“And that’s where we came in.”

Annalise smiled gently. “Yes, and I’m very glad you did.”

Lance took one of Annalise’s hands in his own. “I promise I’ll _never_ treat you badly. I’ll be your friend as long as I live.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I kind of feel like I make highschool look like hell all the time in my fanfic, and I think it's because, even though I was never physically beat up, people were kind of jerks in general and they kind of did that verbally. Although I would have freaking loved to see one of my friends headlock some of my classmates.


End file.
